


Living With Your Ghosts

by ShadowsLament



Series: the Restoration verse [4]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 07:32:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsLament/pseuds/ShadowsLament
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve has let the past lie and Tony wants to know why.</p><p>[Spoilers - somewhat ambiguous, but there nonetheless - for the movie.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living With Your Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going to post this before I lose my nerve, and...leave it to languish in my fic folder. There’s a brief reference to “[There Comes You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/377283)” in here - it’s not necessary to read that story first, though. 
> 
> Title taken from Matthew Perryman Jones’s “Only You”

“So.” Tony propped himself up on an elbow and regarded Steve. The breeze that snuck in through the breach of their open bedroom window crept along the bare skin of his back: a thief mapping muscle and bone, absconding with the heat he had built rocking slowly into Steve a dozen drowsy minutes before. Ignoring the chill, Tony drew his palm up Steve’s hipbone and across the defined ridge of his abdomen. He found Steve’s hand resting on his stomach and tangled their fingers together. “You--I just thought--You never talk about it.”

“It?” Steve turned his head on the pillow and smiled. “Would you like to?” Bringing their joined hands to his mouth, Steve gazed at Tony over the blunt curve of his knuckle, tracing the whip thin scar there with his tongue. “Talk about us? Making love. Or I could use my--“

“Not,” Tony cut in, dropping his forehead to Steve’s, “what I was referring to.” Against the generous curve of soft, exquisitely familiar lips, he murmured, “That said. Anytime, love. Talk dirty. Wear something expendable.” Tony pressed a quick kiss to Steve’s grin and pulled back. “So. Why don’t you?”

Steve blinked; long lashes blotted out the black stain of his pupils, the feverish blue of his irises. “Why don’t I what? Talk dir--“

“You never mention…before.”

Steve’s smile wavered like a candle’s flame; his next breath snuffed it out, leaving Tony to scramble in the dark. 

“Hey.” Tony squeezed Steve’s hand. “Hey. Don’t--“

“You’ve read my file.”

Tony hesitated. “Sure have.”

“Then you know everything.”

“I know ev--Is that how this works?” Rolling to the edge of the bed, Tony sat up. “Because I told you, Steve. About the cave. About Temp…Things I never wanted--Next time? Ask Jarvis. He’ll make sure you get the file.”

Strong fingers curled around Tony’s wrist when he moved to rise from the mattress. “Tony, it’s not…”

“It’s not what? Easy?” Tony shifted back onto the bed. The pain that lingered in the hollows of Steve’s face coiled Tony’s stomach tight as a wire. He reached out, stroked his thumb across the pale line of Steve’s cheekbone. “I get that.” Steve’s eyes closed; he settled into the cradle of Tony’s hand, his own coming up to grip Tony’s wrist. A soft sigh, and then: “You talk. In your sleep. Not often, but…enough. I thought-” Tony shrugged “-I don’t know what I thought.”

“What--“ Steve paused; Tony waited him out, measuring time by the rise and fall of his chest. “What do I say?”

“You--” Tony cleared his throat. “You say his name.” Extricating his hand from Steve’s grasp, he let it fall to the sheet, turning his concentration on a constellation of creases. He bit his tongue, trading one pain for another, and met Steve’s eyes. “Bucky.” 

A flicker of emotion; there and gone before Tony could catalog it. “Anything else?”

“Your war bond speech,” Tony told him. “You recited the entire thing. Pepper found a memo the next day. Something about a pending bank transfer.” He lowered his chin as his grin slipped. “You convinced me, Cap.”

“Please don’t call me that. Not now. Not when I know you’re using it to--”

“Yeah, I’ve got to stop you there.” Tony brought his head up; irritation in control of the angle, the bluff. “I’m not using it to do anything. And when did this become about me? This is about you and the secrets you’re keeping.”

Steve’s eyebrow arched sharply. “And what secrets do--”

“You were in love with him.” As the words echoed into silence, regret pushed through Tony like the shrapnel, puncturing the hope he’d shaped like a master glass blower: one breath at a time, slowly and with more care than he’d applied to any other thing, mechanical or otherwise, in his life. “You probably still are. It’s fine. I can--”

“I loved him,” Steve admitted, “but not like that. Not like I loved Peggy. What I felt for her...It might take time for you to see it, to understand--No. Don’t pull away from me.” Steve moved closer; he wrapped his hand around the back of Tony’s neck, his fingers sifting through cool, black strands of hair, massaging the knot of tension at the base of Tony’s skull. “It will take time, Tony, but one day you’ll believe that it’s you. That it will always be you. And not because you...brought me back. From the war. From--I woke up with their ghosts beside me, sitting vigil. I couldn’t close my eyes--Even when I was...punching a bag in the gym, or...” He shook his head. “ _Before_ was all I had.”

“Right. And now you have me. The rest of the team. Purpose. We can stop talking about this,” Tony said, “any time. Please shut me up. Why the hell did I--Because curiosity kills one in three geniuses every--”

Tony responded to Steve’s lips on his as though he had touched an exposed live wire submerged in water: his body shook, burning at every point of contact as he clung to the supple stretch of skin pressed against his. Warm breath stole in as he met Steve’s tongue. Sustaining him. Shaping hope into something recognizable again. Tony groaned low in his throat, pushed Steve back on the bed. “Was I being stupid?”

“You were--God, Tony,” Steve said, his hips shifting, seeking, as Tony trailed his lips down his jaw, latching onto the swift throb of his pulse, teasing the flushed skin there with his teeth. “I don’t--Were you jealous?”

“Yes. Not like that one time. More,” Tony said. His fingers skimmed Steve’s hip, his torso, brushed his shoulder blades as Tony slid a hand beneath him. “Maybe. Disguised it better.”

“You don’t have to do that. What are you--Don’t stop,” Steve said, urging Tony’s head back to his chest and the path he had begun to carve down his body with his tongue. “I meant-” Steve shuddered as Tony’s breath fell on the slick circle around his naval “-you don’t have to hide what you’re feeling. I want to know. All of you. We’ve come this far--”

“All of--You maintaining your sanity is an issue for another time. But if we’re talking about not hiding things--That’s a two way street,” Tony told him, momentarily abandoning the plan he’d formulated to reduce Steve to panting breaths and gutturally uttered words like _fuck_ and _me_ and _Tony_. “You could have said something. Quiet or not, I knew when you were having a nightmare. I’ve been conscious through enough of my own to recognize the signs. And, okay, I may not be good at this - us - but I would have listened.”

“If we’re having this discussion now, get up here. Your mouth that close to my--” Steve choked on a deep, ragged breath as Tony licked a continuous line up the length of his erection. Tony grinned, unrepentant, eliciting a narrow-eyed glare from Steve. “That...was not playing fair. Remember who started this.”

“The one time I act out of character.” Tony draped himself over Steve, hissing as he settled into the space between long legs, his cock throbbing from the pressure. “I know,” he said, gritting his teeth to keep from thrusting restlessly against Steve’s thigh. “This isn’t an improvement. Fuck coherency. I’m not moving.”

“This,” Steve said, nuzzling his nose into the channel between Tony’s ear and throat, “should be interesting.” He tipped his head back. “Whose turn is it?”

“Yours. Definitely yours.”

“And I’m supposed to be--”

“Telling me. Everything.” Tony squinted. “Actually, no. Sum it up, Steve. Blue balls may not be a thing,” he said, kneading Steve’s hip, “but I’m dying here.”

“Later. I’ll tell you everything,” Steve promised. “Whatever you want to know. But-” swallowing, Steve tightened his hold on Tony “-that day we met, I said things...I had no right, Tony.”

“Sure, and I said things right back. That’s neither--”

“It is.” Blunt nails dug into Tony’s skin, allowing him a few scant inches, enough distance to note the shadows that crowded in Steve’s eyes. “Even then, I knew I was wrong. You were more--But when you sauntered in, started sniping at me, it was--Have you ever felt pins and needles? In every inch of your body? That’s what it was like. I wasn’t existing any more; I was alive. When everyone else I knew and...and loved was gone, I was still here. Falling for a mouthy, brilliant, beautiful man. It scared the hell out of me.”

“So, ah, the things you said? That was you pulling my pigtails?”

“What? You don’t have--”

“Forget that.” Tony waved it away and sniffed. “I’ll hear your apology now.”

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry. I should have said it then, but--There was the mission. Another war. I watched you fall, and it was...it was Bucky all over again. Only there were words between us; words you disproved the second you--And I had to make the call.” Steve didn’t flinch when Tony swept the pad of his thumb up his cheek, wicking away the moisture that tripped over his lashes. “You have no idea what it--I’m beyond compromised now. Losing you would...I can’t live with your ghost, Tony. Not and survive.”

“I would haunt you. No doubt about it. Wouldn’t let you get any rest,” Tony said. “Basically? Nothing would change. So you know-” Tony’s heart, thick in his chest, jerked “-the feeling’s mutual. I’d find you. Wherever you went. And after I kicked your ass for leaving me, I’d have to kiss it better. You like when I sink my tongue in your--” 

“I take it we’re done having our moment?” Steve asked, swiping at his cheek.

“Yes, and why is it called a _moment_? In my experience, we’re talking ten, fifteen minutes. At minimum.” Glancing at his watch on the nightstand, Tony said, “See what I mean? We could have been fucking for--What was the exact time you decided to start going on about--”

“Me? No. This was all you. I was set to keep my deep, dark secrets. As usual, you couldn’t leave it alone.”

“As usual? What are you implying? That I’m predictable? I am not--”

“There’s another minute gone. We could have been fucking--”

“Are you--Is this it? You’re going to start talking dirty now? In the middle of our moment--”

“We’ll have plenty more, Tony,” Steve said, rolling Tony beneath him. “You cut the wire. Came back to me. Neither one of us is going anywhere. Got that?”

“Absolutely. Nowhere. I’ve got your back. Now if you could grab my--”

“Tony.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tony moaned, arching into Steve’s touch. “Tony’s a good start. Keep talking.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working on that Clint, Tasha and Thor "lunch" scene, but...It seems to me I only ever write these little moments between Steve/Tony. And I was wondering...Well, if you have prompts, something you'd like me to try my hand at...Let me know? (Don't be surprised if I try and it turns into a little moment anyway. :P)


End file.
